Down to Earth
by Darkfire Galaxy
Summary: Sequel to Head in the Clouds. Cammie is having trouble sleeping and so Doctor Weller enlists her help with a problem.


Gen:Lock

Down to Earth

Cammie sat up, shaking her head to clear the throbbing. It had been a week since her desynchronization in the pod. There'd been no repeat of the incident, but the rigorous training was definitely taking a toll. The day's recovery time before Doctor Weller had thrown her back on the horse had done very little, and the residual effects were having to clear in their own time.

Swiping the air in front of her, she brought up her hologram display in the darkness. The armour upgrade designs were sitting there currently rendering an imprint of Nugget so she could rip the design of his back legs and remodel them to her own purposes. She couldn't do anything more until that was done and she'd only started the reverse engineering process just before she'd gone to sleep. It needed another five hours at least.

Checking the time, she let out a sigh. There was very little she could do at four in the morning but grab a can of energy drink and try to get a jump-start on the day. She hopped down from her bunk, trying not to wake anyone and crept towards the door. The corridors would be down to a skeleton crew, so she knew she could remain relatively undisturbed. She grabbed some socks from her bedside drawer and headed towards the door. It was at the door that she got her first surprise. The door was on a time lock to release at precisely 0700.

'_They must have set this up in case anyone else was a spy_.' Cammie thought. Tampering with it would probably trip an alarm, so she wasted no time. Hacking in was easy enough and she made it to the first firewall, but didn't attempt to breach it yet. First, she got to work on the alarm. Interestingly, there were no firewalls around the alarm system, probably so as not to interfere with the sensitivity of it. Disabling that took seconds, allowing her to safely breach the rest of the firewalls. The door opened with a soft hiss and she simply strolled out into the corridor. No one even batted an eye as she passed them and reaching the commissary was easy enough. She walked up to the counter and tapped on the glass, causing a bleary-eyed cashier to walk out from the back.

"What'll it be?" he asked in a tone that suggested that even though he took the early shift from 0200 to 0900 hours, he was coming to the end of it having only worked a full two hours.

"Do you have any energy drinks?" Cammie asked. The cashier passed her one and let out a sigh as he took her credit chip. Once she'd paid, Cammie found a small seating area and opened the can, swallowing a mouthful and talking a breath as though for the first time. She sat back, thinking about the events of the last week. Valentina had stuck by her like glue, watching for any sign that something was off, using the firing range with her... Val had actually refused to spar with Cammie in the arena as well, saying it was because she was afraid of hurting her. That was right before Kazu had jumped straight into the arena and beaten her to within an inch of desynchronizing again. He probably saw it that he'd given her all the sympathy he was going to and now that she was back into training it was business as usual. But Val... Cammie's heart sped up a bit at the thought. Valentina had been acting like the sister she'd never had. She couldn't help but wonder why she of all people would go so far out of their way to help as she had.

"Well, this is a surprise." Cammie was forcefully snapped back to reality. She looked up to see Doctor Weller sitting down next to her.

"Don't you _ever_ sleep?" she asked him seriously.

"I could ask you the same thing." Weller countered. "Especially since you always complain about being tired during training. You know I should technically have you placed under arrest and dragged back to your room right now, don't you?"

"Uh, I believe you held yourself hostage until the colonel agreed to transfer us here." Cammie pointed out. "Since when do you ever follow rules?"

"Ah, you dug up my file." Weller sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"Yeah, and I also know you get flustered when you get stuck." Cammie pressed. "So, what are you working on?"

"Well, I'm not really supposed to be talking about it." Weller shrugged. "Still, you seem like just the person to help and I am totally stuck on this one. Come on then, let's go take a look at it, shall we?" Cammie grinned as she got up and followed the doctor back to the lab.

When they entered, the reception hadn't been at all what Cammie expected. Caliban was there and working at a computer terminal while Chase was floating in his tank. As soon as she crossed the threshold, he'd mixed over to her side in an instant.

"What the hell are you doing up?" he demanded. "You know the security is there for a reason, right?"

"Yeah well _you_ try and sleep with a headache like this!" Cammie snapped back as she finished her energy drink. Caliban had looked over and was clearly considering going for the alarm.

"Okay, everyone just calm down!" Weller ordered. "Yes, what miss MacCloud has done is entirely in breach of every single rule put in place by the Vanguard, but it is entirely authorised... By me. And since she's part of the ESU just like all of you, there's no need to tell anyone outside of our little club about any of this. Speaking of students out of bed, Julian, you should be in the land of nod by now yourself."

"Man, I _know_!" Chase sighed. "I swear I'm in so much pain I can't even feel my legs."

"Julian, that one's getting old." Weller glared at him. "If you want, we can sedate you. But we can't keep doing this every night. We'll have to find an alternative."

"Thanks, Doc." Chase nodded before vanishing. Caliban plugged in a vial of green liquid which was quickly sucked into the tank. Inside, Chase's eyes slowly drifted shut.

"You have to do that every night?" Cammie couldn't stop tears from springing to her eyes.

"Only in the last six months." Weller told her. "At first, he was fine on his own. In fact, the mental trauma meant that most of what he did was sleeping. It was his only way to run, I suppose. He had to try and hide in his dreams. As time's gone on, he's started to trust the tank less, becoming paranoid his nose will get blocked, ETC. We had one instance where his throat closed up in the night. But what can we really do about it? We can't lie his tank down all night because it's too much stress on his internal organs. For now, we're just trying to get all his organs back up to full functionality before we even think about letting him breathe on his own again."

"Poor sod." Cammie muttered rubbing her eyes frantically. "How is it that seeing this makes me feel selfish for having all my bits where they're supposed to be?"

"Chase went through something no human being in history should ever go through." Weller put an arm around her and pulled her close. "But you can make it up to him with your silence. He finds it a bit embarrassing so for the love of God, don't mention this conversation to the team or anyone else. If he opens up to them, that's his business. If he opens up to you, pretend you're hearing it all for the first time."

"Okay." Cammie nodded, feeling a bit more sure of herself. "Now, what was this thing you wanted me for?"

"Ah, yes." Weller led her over to his desk and sat her down in front of a mess of parts. "This is a fail safe system I'm putting in place to prevent the Union from acquiring the Gen:Lock technology here should it ever come to that. I have backup data stored off-site that will self-terminate if Union beacons get within a certain distance of it, but this thing I'm struggling with. I don't want to have to rely on that system here. The other data is with people I trust in the other place, but here I don't trust anyone other than myself to secure it correctly. This device is a bomb, Cammie. I set the timer and I run. The physical blast will not only wreck the lab and kill anyone caught in it, but the electromagnetic wave will also act as a trojan for a virus that will go through every file on this base and wipe anything with any data in it centred around Gen:Lock. Anything that mentions the program, the Holons or any of your names, I want it gone."

"Well, that's easy enough." Cammie shrugged.

"Yes, well it gets more complex." Weller grimaced. "This is the bit I didn't want to do, but have to. I've also added a manual detonator to the device. This is for only the most extreme emergencies. If the Union storm this place and I can't get away quick enough, the device can be fired manually. My plan in that instance is to trick one of them into doing it and try to escape in the three seconds it takes to charge before they figure it out."

"But if you can't get away..." Cammie threw him a horrified look.

"Cammie, that part is for me to worry about." Weller assured her. "What I need to know right now is how to rig up the virus I've made and the timer to the bomb without the risk of detonating it myself when trying to set it."

"Okay, well let's take a look." Cammie bent over the device, studying it. "Are those closed-circuit polymorphic wave conductors? That could be your problem right there. Those things are way too unstable. I never touch them in any of my tech. What you need are neodymium-tipped phase pulse conductors and link them into the relays of the timer's circuits. It'll cut any link between the timer and the manual switch, while still keeping them both linked to the detonator. That way, it'll be like a dragon with two heads, each head moving independently but still attached to the same body."

"How soon can you make that happen?" Weller asked eagerly.

"Well, you'll have to requisition them." Cammie shrugged. "They're pretty common. Just tell the colonel that you need them for your research. They've probably got some in storage. Once you've got them, you can install them yourself. It's literally like they do all the work for you."

"Ah, I see." Weller pushed his glasses further up his nose. "Caliban, sneak down to the storage room and search for some neodymium-tipped phase pulse conductors." Caliban nodded and moved wordlessly to the door.

"Wait... You can just _do_ that?" Cammie couldn't believe it.

"Well, who's going to question him when he won't answer back?" the doctor winked at her. "This is _me_. If I made it so he _could_ talk back, they'd all want me to shut him up again." Cammie burst out laughing. Suddenly, Abel mixed into the room.

"_Doctor, the colonel requests that you fix me immediately_!" As he sang, Cammie only laughed harder.

"Is that Gilbert and Sullivan?" She asked looking up at the doctor.

"Ah, you know them?" Weller gave her an impressed look.

"I liked to look at some of the old classics while spying on people through their tech." Cammie grinned. "Plus, you threatened to do it after we had the incident with the spy."

"Yes, well the fact that you're here and not in the cubes proves you learned enough of your lesson to be useful to the Polity." Weller rolled his eyes. "Abel here clearly hasn't, since he's just mixed into my office without permission _again_, which is why he's like this in the first place. So, what do we do?" Abel's lips started moving, but no sound came out. Clearly it wasn't just an audio issue on their end either, because Abel started to cover himself and make frantic motions to his neck.

"Oh, that's just cruel." Cammie rolled her eyes. "Do you even know how to put him right?"

"Well, I did before I just erased every single one of his speech functions." Weller admitted, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Honestly, I think I actually prefer him like this."

"For the love of Christ, the colonel is going to murder you!" Cammie snapped. "Leave him with me. I'll re-code him. It might take a couple of hours."

"Have at it." Weller shrugged as Caliban ambled back into the room holding a small box full of parts. "Ah, that must be the gear I juts requisitioned. You know, they're very punctual here. You work on Abel, I'll work on my countermeasure."

"Why the hell didn't I get out of here when I had the chance?" Cammie muttered to herself as she got to work. It didn't take long to find the problem, but she knew she had her work cut out to fix it. Rebuilding Abel's speech sub-routines took her well into the morning. Eventually, she sat back and let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding.

"Are we all done, over there?" Weller called over.

"I think so." Cammie nodded. "Fire it up, Able."

"Noremac, uoy knaht." Abel said before covering his mouth. Weller burst out laughing and even Caliban flashed a thumbs-up as best he could.

"Now he's going bloody _backwards_!" Cammie sighed.

"Well, amusing as it is, the colonel might notice." Weller got up and walked over. He grabbed an inversion tuner from his desk and handed it to Cammie. "Here. This is used to invert rogue lines of code to make deleting them easier. You can use it the other way to correct the inversion once you've found it."

"Thanks." Cammie took it from him gratefully and flicked the switch. The machine hummed to life in her hands and she started to turn the dial on the side. A bright green bar appeared at the edge of the screen and began to work its way around. Suddenly, it lit up red and Cammie pressed the button in the centre of the dial as quick as she could. There was a bleep as the code instantly flipped.

"Thank you, Cameron." Abel said, seeming relieved to have his true voice back.

"If you ever get a fault again, come to _me_ and not him." Cammie grinned as she turned off the tuner and set it down.

"Yes and speaking of, I think you'd better get back to your quarters before anyone notices you're gone." Weller got up and opened the door for her. Cammie nodded and got up, turning to head down the hall. "Oh, Cammie?" Weller called after her. Cammie turned back to acknowledge him. "Loving the socks by the way." The grin returned to Cammie's face as she headed back, but it vanished when the door to her room opened. Valentina was sitting on the edge of her bunk with a face like thunder. As soon as Cammie entered, her eyes locked on to her like an eagle after a rabbit.

"Where the hell did you go?" she asked as Cammie approached.

"I went to the toilet." Cammie shrugged.

"For three hours?" Val clearly didn't believe a word. "And why would you have to override the door lock when there's a perfectly good en-suite right there?"

"Okay, look... I went to grab a drink from the commissary and then Doctor Weller asked for my help with something he's working on." Cammie sat down next to Val and let out a sigh.

"You know, if you're struggling with something we can try to help you." Val leaned in and wrapped an arm around Cammie. "But we can only do it if you let us in."

"How do you deal with it if you feel like you've essentially helped someone kill themselves?" Cammie asked. Val suddenly burst into a coughing fit.

"Is everything okay, Val?" Yasamin called over. She'd only just woken up and Kazu was still sound asleep.

"I just choked on my breath!" Val gasped out.

"Well, don't die on us just yet." Yaz hopped out of bed and headed towards the en suite bathroom. Once she was gone, Val turned her attention back to Cammie.

"Okay, come here." She pulled Cammie down to lie next to her and pulled her close, allowing them to talk more discreetly. "Do you maybe want to explain that better?"

"This goes no further, right?" Val nodded and motioned for Cammie to continue. "The doctor is working on a countermeasure if the Union get into the base." Cammie told her. "It'll blow up his lab and everyone in it, but also unleash a virus into the base's systems erasing everything Gen:Lock related. He's put a manual trigger on it as well as a timer for extreme emergencies."

"I see." Val nodded as she rolled over onto her back. "And you helped him with it." Cammie nodded, a look of utter shame on her face.

"I figured that the timer meant we have nothing to worry about, but I'm starting to worry what if he never plans to use it if the chance comes up."

"I shouldn't worry about it." Val rested her head against Cammie's and pulled up a holographic photo. "This was Nicholai Zinovaef. He was my spotter when I was fighting with the Ukrainian Vanguard Force Recon, the Union discovered our position. One round through his kneecap was all it took to render him a dead man."

"Did they hit an artery?" Cammie looked up, confused. "You don't usually die from a round through the kneecap. Yeah, I imagine it hurts like hell, but it won't kill you."

"It wasn't meant to kill." Valentina deactivated the photo. "It was meant to maim. They wanted to capture us both alive. They wanted me to slow down and help him so that they could catch up to us. Unfortunately for them, we'd drilled this situation relentlessly. If one of us can't make it, we don't surrender them to the Union to be tortured and then thrown to the nano once they've confessed. The plan changes to asset denial. If I couldn't take Nicholai with me, neither could the Union."

"You didn't!" Cammie looked up at Val like she'd grown a second head.

"It brings you down to earth a bit, doesn't it?" Val shrugged. "It was what he wanted. Just as the doctor Weller is doing what he wants to do. Nicholai, the doctor... They're both grown men. They're stubborn and they all act like they have something to prove to people. You haven't helped anyone to end themselves, you've helped them secure the secrets of their invention and the people using it."

"I guess you're right." Cammie perked up a bit. "Plus, I fixed Abel as well."

"Oh, thank God for that!" Val visibly relaxed back. "I thought I was going to have to put up with him singing to a tune that wasn't there forever."

"It was funny at first, but the novelty wore off after a while." Cammie agreed, also relaxing back for the first time in ages. "Do you think we could just relax like this for a little while longer? I haven't been able to stop stressing out for weeks and it's nice to finally take a breather."

"Of course, _moya zayka_." Val said, wrapping an arm around her almost protectively.

"Actually, you're going to need to get up." Cammie and Val looked over as Yasamin walked back into the room, drying her face on a towel. "It's time to get dressed and head to breakfast."

"God dammit!" Cammie muttered as she hauled herself up with great reluctance, her joints screaming in protest having just relaxed. "Well, I guess we should get it over with so I can get back and get some sleep."

Epilogue

It was just over a week later when Cammie's world was brought crashing down around her. The Anvil had been attacked. Doctor Weller was dead. Caliban's Omega protocol had granted them the coordinates to the RTASA facility, and they were on their way. She'd always wanted to go there, but hated that it was under such circumstances. Darkness had fallen and she was on edge. The Nemesis could sense when they uploaded and so they had very little in the way of defences. The ship carried a payload of missiles, but nothing else of significant damage. If the Union happened to find them by sheer chance, they'd have very little defence against the manoeuvrability of their drones.

"Are you okay?" Val asked, causing Cammie to nearly jump out of her skin.

"I'm just tired." Cammie lied.

"Come with me." Val got up, beckoning Cammie to follow her. They headed to the cargo room at the back and Val used the panel on the wall to turn the temperature up in the bay. She sat down on the edge of Cammie's pod and patted the metal edge next to her. "Alright, now what's _really_ going on?"

"I'm just tired." Cammie shrugged. "I'm tired of losing everything. I used to be a hacktivist until I stumbled on the doctor's Holon frame blueprints on the Polity data net. I printed them out for my bedroom wall and got arrested. While I was getting processed, I had to go through medical. Once that was done, I was informed that the Polity needed more young people in cyber security. I took the deal, but then my family wouldn't let me come back after everything that had happened. I had to phone ahead and make an _appointment_ to get my stuff and then rebuild my life from the ground up. The accommodation they put me up in didn't allow animals, so I couldn't take my gerbil. That's why I built Nugget." Hearing his name, Nugget popped out the front of Cammie's jacket and nuzzled her cheek.

"You did an amazing job on him." Val reached over and rubbed the top of Nugget's head with a finger. "Honestly, the first time I saw him I thought you'd just bought him from somewhere."

"No, I made him." Cammie grinned as Nugget gave an indignant squeak and ducked back into his hiding spot. "While I was rebuilding my life, I got contacted by the doctor. Apparently while I was being processed after my arrest, they'd secretly conducted the Weller test and found out I was compatible. They came and got me, telling me to only bring the essentials. I grabbed Nugget and some key tech, but I had to leave everything else behind again. I met you guys and you know the rest, but what have we got left now? We've got Kazu's guitar, Nugget, one airship with a handful of missiles and some Holons that are virtually in waste-down; and it's all my fault for helping him build that bloody bomb!"

"You are not to blame for this, _moya zayka_." Val assured her. "You are strong, passionate and loyal to a fault. You've survived so much and become so much stronger than you probably ever dreamed. You have strength of mind and body, you proved as much at the Anvil today." Val leaned over and rested her head on top of Cammie's briefly, hugging her close. "_T__y mne nravish'sya_. Get some sleep. We'll plan our next move tomorrow." Cammie nodded and wiped her eyes, trying to hide frustrated tears. She laid down in her pod, making sure she was in a position that was comfortable for both her and Nugget. Val went to head back to the cockpit when Cammie lifted her head again.

"Oh, and Val? _Ty mne tozhe nravish'sya_."

"You understood that?" Val turned back to Cammie with an amused smirk.

"Loud and clear." Cammie nodded. "Don't worry. I'm fine with it. Let's just wait until after all this is finished before figuring out what to do next though, shall we? I don't think I have the head space right now."

"Agreed." Val nodded. "Good night, _moya zayka_." Val walked off leaving Cammie alone. Cammie knew she'd be asleep soon, but the dreams she'd have were another matter. She couldn't help but envy Nugget at times. Occasionally when he was in sleep mode, he'd twitch as though he were dreaming. But she knew that was a lie. Every 'dream' he had was destined to be a good one by her own design. Never any nightmares, never suffering in his sleep, never suffering a moment of his robotic little life. It was one of the things Cammie wanted, but felt she'd never obtain: a life free from suffering. Not just for her, but for everyone. A life where she could have anything, even if it was just the bare minimum, and not feel at risk of losing it. For her, sleep was like a game of Russian Roulette; but she'd take it over potential alternatives any day. As she'd learned from her missions in her Holon, there were far worse games to play.

End


End file.
